Interlaken!

24 April 2012

The next stop on our trip was Interlaken, Switzerland! I have wanted to go here for a while now – after seeing so many friends there, it looked absolutely amazing to me. After too many train rides and 8 hours later, we made it there .. AMAZED at the fact that we were literally inside of the mountains. It was incredible.

Interlaken is a tiny town situated in a valley between two gorgeous lakes. The town has no stoplights, which I absolutely loved. People also smiled at us when we passed on the streets, which I haven’t had happen to me in a very long time – I loved it. We walked a little ways to find our hostel, Balmers Herbage. This hostel had some great reviews and it was on the list for one of the top hostels around …. False.

We got there and checked into our room, which was the size of my closet with 3 bunks crammed in. The bathrooms were in the hallways along with the showers – and these showers, in order for them to work, you have to hold the button down the whole time or else it will shut off .. just like the lights. Yep, I finished my shower in the dark. Oh and we were kicked out of the hostel from 10:30-4PM because apparently it takes five hours to clean a room. And this is all coming from someone who loves hostels. Honestly I would prefer to stay in them over a hotel.

Anyways, the hostel was undoubtedly the worst that we’ve stayed in, but it was manageable. We dropped our stuff off and went walking through the town. The place is so cute. It is very rural, but with the typical Swiss stereotypical buildings you would think of. There are some shopping areas but it is SO expensive! We didn’t buy much at all because of the prices .. it was worse than London! What we did splurge on though was some Swiss chocolate. Absolutely. Amazing. They had so many different kinds so Heather and I bought some little truffles that had caramel or coffee or chocolate … it was probably some of the best chocolate I have ever had. The day was almost over, so we headed back to the hostel to hang out.

The next day we were planning on going up the mountains and I REALLY wanted to go paragliding, but it was rainy and cloudy and that weather never mixes well with mountains or doing things up in the sky. So unfortunately, we spent the day on the ground. We went walking to find the lakes though, and we got a pretty incredible view through them of the mountains and everything. I absolutely loved Switzerland – I wish the weather would have cooperated more, but for what we had it was great.

That night the Balmer’s bar was open so we decided to check it out. We were invited over to some French guys table .. and you know the Frenchies .. super creepy. Some Swiss army boys were there too running around the bar, and a group of American’s who were all really nice. They went cliff jumping earlier in the day and say it was the scariest and greatest things they have ever done and recommended we do it. I also met an Australian who is a sky diving instructor in Interlaken. He talked to me all about sky diving and how I need to do it, and told me if I decided to the next day that I could go with him. He was so convincing and cool, so I was completely prepared to wake up and go – and after he talked to Heather a bit, he kind of convinced her too, which is VERY hard to do.

So we wanted to wake up the next morning and get to it, but unfortunately we didn’t wake up as early as we wanted and by the time we got out, it was already cloudy again. But I’ve decided that before we leave we are doing something of the sorts. Especially now that Heather told me she’s ‘secretly’ always wanted to do something extreme like that. As the bar was closing and we were ready to head upstairs, of course the Frenchies came back and tried to tell us they ‘lost their hotel key’ and had to stay in our room … ? Annoying.

The water really is THAT blue

DELICIOUS

Prettiest money I've ever seen

So today we woke up and got on the train to the Cinque Terre in Italy! We are so so excited because A) it’s a beach and Heather has been crying about her beach withdrawal and B) we splurged on a hotel right on one of the cliffs looking out to the ocean, so we are real excited about that! The pictures look gorgeous, so hopefully the weather will work out for us this time!